Bio

Jori Lehtera Bio

Six years after Lehtera was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the third round (No. 65) of the 2008 NHL Draft, they finally signed him to an NHL contract on July 1, 2014.

He proved to be worth the wait upon joining the Blues in 2014-15. Lehtera scored 14 goals and had a plus-21 rating, the third highest by a first-year St. Louis player. He also had a natural hat trick Nov. 11, 2014, against the Buffalo Sabres, the first by a Blues player since Al MacInnis on Oct. 12, 1998.

Six years after Lehtera was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the third round (No. 65) of the 2008 NHL Draft, they finally signed him to an NHL contract on July 1, 2014.

He proved to be worth the wait upon joining the Blues in 2014-15. Lehtera scored 14 goals and had a plus-21 rating, the third highest by a first-year St. Louis player. He also had a natural hat trick Nov. 11, 2014, against the Buffalo Sabres, the first by a Blues player since Al MacInnis on Oct. 12, 1998.

Lehtera scored his first Stanley Cup Playoff goal April 25, 2016, against the Chicago Blackhawks, and had three goals and nine points in 20 games to help St. Louis reach the Western Conference Final.

Before his NHL career, Lehtera was a productive player in Europe. In 2005-06 he led the junior league in his home country of Finland with 33 assists playing for Jokerit. In 2006-07 he played 28 games for Jokerit's team in Liiga (Finland's top league) scoring 12 points (six goals).

He spent the next two Liiga seasons with Tappara, where he was the club's leading scorer in 2008-09 with 47 points (nine goals). At the end of the Liiga season, he played seven regular-season games and seven Calder Cup playoff games for Peoria, the Blues' American Hockey League affiliate.

Returning to Tappara, he had his best season in his homeland in 2009-10, when he led Liiga with 69 points and 50 assists. He won the Lasse Oksanen Award as the league's top player in the regular season.

Lehtera then spent four seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League, where he skated on the same line with future Blues teammate Vladimir Tarasenko with Sibir Novosibirsk in 2011-12 until Tarasenko was traded to SKA St. Petersburg during the season. Lehtera was a KHL All-Star in 2012-13 and 2013-14, when he led Sibir Novosibirsk with 44 points (12 goals).